Pictures From Here

Photo-conceptualism at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

New to the Vancouver Art Gallery for summer is Pictures From Here, an exhibit chronicling the emergence of “photo-conceptualism”, a Vancouver-born lens-based art movement known for contributing to the city’s rising reputation as a centre for contemporary art from the late fifties to the present day. “For some audiences, this will be the first time they see the remarkable artists associated with photo-conceptualism,” says Vancouver Art Gallery director Kathleen Bartels of the works; some new, some never before shown in Vancouver.

The exhibit, curated by Audain curator of British Colombian art Grant Arnold, features highlights including Greg Girard’s neon-and-streetlamp illuminated eighties grunge cityscapes, Rodney Graham’s vivid Paddler at the Mouth of the Seymour, and Fred Herzog’s scenes of fifties urban life, as well as video installations by Stan Douglas and Paul Wong. In one room, Karin Bubaš’s well-dressed girls face away from the camera, towards bucolic forest scenes in every direction; in another, Jeff Wall’s Monologue chromogenic print takes up an entire wall, its depiction of gesticulating men in a park at twilight, a forest of pines behind them, conjuring an unmistakable sense of urban life by the wilderness’ edge. Through the collection of such evocative imagery, Pictures From Here transports visitors and locals alike past Vancouver’s surface, revealing some of the city’s most artistically formative perspectives of itself.

Pictures From Here runs May 19 to September 4, 2017 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.